Well!

I'm getting bored with this whole blogspot deal. Although I agree with Jules Renard's statement, a 19th century French author, in that: "Writing is the only way to talk without being interrupted," I feel as though I'm missing out on the equally important part of writing, the interruptions, the feedback, the criticisms. You can't comment on blogspot without being a member yourself, which I find very frustrating. And the last thing anyone needs is to subscribe to another website.

Things will change. This writing will be left behind.

Ugly Shoe Trials

I've been hesitant to publish anything regarding my recent experience as a night watchman at band camp because I'm aware of the forest-fire nature of "scandalous" topics. I envisioned writing a comparative piece on my personal band camp experiences, (when I was a student at the high school), to today's conservative model. I wanted to incorporate a sociopolitical/conjectural analysis of why students are being treated the way they are now, and why the parenting body feels so strongly towards upholding this level of "discipline".

But I shudder at the thought of what would occur if the small legion of parents at Mineola high school caught wind of the words and pictures I intended to publish exclusively for my blog fans--my flog bans.

One day in high school, perhaps sophomore year, I decided to open an umbrella indoors. It's funny to me how that sounds like a figure of speech but it's not. That very day, I was called into the principle's office to discuss pictures I had uploaded onto Yahoo of a recent party. Granted, these pictures featured under-aged debauchery in many forms, but I was still very surprised to hear that my pictures had been viewed by the majority of the PTA and that I had no choice but to remove them immediately.

So not only was I made to cower before the superstition of umbrellas ever-since, but I've also had to learn how to censor myself over the years, which I believe this blog to be an excellent practice of. When you write for a faceless and numberless crowd, since the crowd is formidable in size, your voice really changes.


But I came here today to once again review Vibram's Five Finger KSO model since after a bit of research, and a bit more usage, my feelings towards them have changed.

I seem to have overlooked the website: "Motion studies demonstrate that when running barefoot, one naturally lands on the forefoot, directly below your center of gravity. This results in optimum balance, increased stability, less impact, and greater propulsion. According to Dr. Ivo Waerlop of the Vibram Biomechanics Advisory Board, 'Running in FiveFingers improves agility, strength, and equilibrium, plus it delivers sensory feedback that allows runners to make immediate corrections in their form. This greatly improves running efficiency.'"

The "forefoot" is key here. The "balls" of your feet. Having lived twenty-three years, I've just come to realize, yesterday, that I've been running "improperly". I suppose I considered breathlessly clomping around in my running shoes to be the proper method, and shoes such as in the Nike "Shox" line only helped to reinforce this conception.

I talked to a friend who has participated in numerous marathons about this and he seemed ambivalent about proper-foot striking. It's a personal preference, I'm certain, but there is some science to this.

Turns out, those Five-Finger shoes I purchased are just fine for the pavement. It's when you strike with your entire foot that it becomes a painful experience. The first time I jogged three miles with the KSO model, I remember every muscle below my knee throbbing, as if I had never worked them out before.

But now, after having jogged using only the forefoot strike, I'm dealing with incredibly sore calf muscles since I didn't stop jogging when they felt uncomfortable. If you're considering jogging as a hobby, which I recommend, I'd look into the nuances of pronation before selecting appropriate footwear. Pronation is the rotational movement of your foot.

There's a lot more to this running thing than I thought.

Reality

Reality hits home today when a new guy shows up to work at the pizzeria. He's hispanic, soft-spoken, and a bit short. He moves around slowly and looks tired, too tired for his age, which I find out to be 16 later on in the day.

I find this information out along with the fact that he's a father, and he's got another one coming. "16, but I'll be 17 in November and I'm excited, because in one more year I'll be 18, and then I'll have a big party." And I look at him, trying to make sense of his situation, of the immeasurable maturity and immaturity it takes to get to where he's at--but when I hear him talk, he's just a child. "And I'll have beers at the party," he snickers, and I tell him that's very legal of him.

I joke around with the men at work that this young guy is like my little project now, my baby, and that I'm going to raise him and teach him the inner-workings of this deceivingly difficult job. And I say that because there's always a chance to mess up. Every move is a potential burn, cut, what have you. But it's still just a job at the end of the day, like any other. Except this boy's daily salary will go towards diapers, and baby food, and whatever else babies need to survive. But work continues, and the salacious (using big words doesn't make you smart) attitudes of the men I work with become increasingly discomforting.

My co-workers have become violent in their sexuality. They continuously threaten to shove cucumbers and squashes up my rear. They ask me every morning if I've gotten with a girl (to put it angelically) and they're blown away when I tell them I have not, since I actually have days off for the grand and never-ending pursuit.

But it's difficult for the men with no women. They gawk at any passing female, and anatomize her best features, whether it be her lumpy ass, or her short shorts.

I never understood the need for prostitution until I started working at the pizzeria...or the need to compulsively drink after a hard day's work, like cliche alcoholic fathers in Lifetime films. And it's the gross monotony that does it, the willing imprisonment of the position--being an immigrant, legal or not, and being geographically, as well as socially entrapped. The alcohol, liquid-earplugs, a damper to the requests, "One slice to go, not too hot."

When you consider that these men work 84 hours a week, for years, you start to understand that those inherent biological needs supplant any pride or reservations towards the professionally promiscuous. I've been asked at least ten times if I was interested in calling a prostitute after work, sharing or taking turns, I imagine. And the 16 year old watches us and catches on quickly.

An hour before we close shop, the father of soon to be two, looks at a girl who passes by the front of the pizzeria with a bunch of other loiterers and says "wow, she's one pretty girl," and he wages serious bets with the men that the girl being lusted after is twelve years old.

A picture from two months ago. Original caption: Tequila Tuesdays, and sometimes Saturdays

Musics

Since I'm at work, I'm distracted, so I figured it best to post some youtube tunes I've favorited for redundant reasons...and it should go without saying that for this post to work, I have to assume that my numerous readers have never come across these themselves, and if they have, well:

Here's The Who, with a wicked live performance at some circus tent.



I'm so glad Wes used this version of the song in Rushmore since the original recording is lack-luster.


I've linked this video before in an earlier post commemorating Chopin's birthday, but since I feel as though this is the greatest piano performance ever filmed, I see no problem in using it again. "Ladies and gentlemen, Vladimir Horowitz." --Thunderous applause

"When I am on the stage, I’m a king. No one can interfere with me because I have something to do, and it has to be the best which is within me." - Horowitz, not the best of quotes but it'll suffice.



I enjoy Regina Spektor's performance here more so than others because it feels more intimate, and that's all I want to be with Regina.



You've got to hand it to The Avett Brothers for making "timed" and soulful performances look easy.

Quejar mas, si puedes

I've been internalizing quite a bit I've realized. Little things just nag me, in ways that perhaps shouldn't, and the funny part is, once someone like myself complains about them, they're immediately execrated--made pariahs. Why is it so loathsome to simply hate what a great majority try to ignore?

I don't remember where I read it, but I read "Ignorance is an act of will," and I've agreed ever since. None of the bliss bullshit. I think ignorance is an incredibly disguised curse, masked by its banality.

Not all of the following suggestions are environmentally related, but they do all have one similarity. They are certain ways that people can change, miniscule considerations that can surprisingly wake people out of their living stupor and make our immediate little worlds, outside the chaos of the media and all of its headlines, a little more comfortable. Isn't that a nice thought? No war, no third world poverty or quality of life, just our humdrum, suburban way of living.

And onto it

My parents like to play this game called, How Many Electronic Devices Can We Leave On?

The thing is, they never tell me when they're about to play, they just do so, and I never have fun ending the game for them. I don't work for LIPA or the power grid, but I'm cognizant enough to remember these things are luxuries.

Chivalry in the Chubway

Every time I'm on a crowded train, I'll ask any nearby females if they'd like a seat. 9 times out of 10 I get strange looks, incredulous, as if it were some audacious preposition. And the guys never turn their heads, ever, they just sit there reading or thinking about the salmon marinating in the fridge at home. I've found that when I ask this question, I involuntarily attach a hint of Southern drawl to my formality: "Eggs-cuse me, miss, wood you care for a seat?"

Nothing is dumber, in my opinion concerning heteronormative chivalry, than the jacket in the puddle. Now, if it's not a puddle, then it can't be a three foot stream rushing through your town, because a jacket wouldn't really do anything. It would just give the lady a brief moment of hope before her shoes went wet. A real man would pick that hot piece of ass up and ford the obstacle.

To me, this is funny because it's terrible, and because there's actually a bloated corpse if you look in the far left corner.

But all in all, only a foot fetishist should care that much.

Gum

If I could line up everyone who's gum I've stepped into, rested my arm on, etc.,

I would restrain them and place these biological monstrosities on their faces, Fear-Factor style, but for hours.

Or depriving them of sleep for four days (since you do irreparable physiological damage by the fifth).

...I just think it's a lazy, and cowardly thing to do, if it's left there intentionally.

In other words, if you can't properly dispose of gum, don't fucking chew it.

Slow Loris break...

Toilet Seats

This is what I imagine every guy who can't lift a toilet seat looks like--that stupid grin, getting away with nothing. There's something strange about the male psyche; we all believe we have impeccable aim, but more often than not, we end up pissing on the seat.

And I believe we shouldn't be forced to stoop down and wipe anonymous piss away in the event of having to go number three. It could very well be the case that this inherent fault of ours legitimizes when a woman uses a men's bathroom, but makes it taboo for the converse to occur. I've used plenty of lady bathrooms, when I needed to, not for fun, and every time a lady catches me, it's as if I've offended her somehow, even if I left that seat pristine as a pickle.

Cigarette Asses

The funny thing about using this picture is that I know it'll give some of you a craving. And I don't mean to be cruel, considering these bad boys cost $10 a pack now, $13 in Queens, but I do mean it when I tell people, smoking doesn't bother me, it's the littering that gets me. As far as I'm concerned, the only person who ever had the right to flick their butt was Jim Carrey, or more appropriately, Stanley Ipkiss in The Mask during the dream sequence when Cameron Diaz romances Ipkiss in a skin-tight, black and white striped dress. But I'm sure nobody knows what I'm talking about.

I ate a cigarette butt when I was younger, which is also probably why I'm against discarding them so carelessly. This isn't true, but I feel as though I'd have a hard time to convince you otherwise by this point.

Honking assholes

When the driver in the front of the line doesn't immediately hit the gas as soon as the light turns green...Man! What I wouldn't do to have all those cumulative seconds back. I'll honk after three seconds. That's my personal rule, three Mississippi's. If the person can't figure it out by then, well shit.

Louis C.K. reinforces this in one his bits that I can't find.

Texting

This is it. We are here, at the forefront of communicative capability--except we need these fucking little keyboards to do it, and those little chimes and buzzes to know when to.

Associated Press: The average age of texting inception

To clarify, that picture did not come from the Associated Press. I don't feel the need to involve litigation for the vacuous purposes of this blog.

But what I'm getting it as that we are becoming more and more so, like my little personal slogan, "a generation of typing conversationalists," and it's really complicated things in my opinion. People tell me it's simpler because of the brevity and immediacy of it all, but all I have to do is take a look at a contrived group like this:

to realize how powerfully children are being affected by texting. I mean, look at the girl on the right, look at her face, crumbling under the societal pressures her younger peers have imposed upon her, a fish-bowl of letters. And that boy, a true impostor of the texting world--I like to think myself as him, but not as amused.

I'm continually blown away by the ease and diversity at which texting lingo manifests itself. I'd like to pretend that I'm making this stuff up, but a recent facebook update by one of my 16 year old pizzeria co-workers solidified the reality of it all for me.

Consider the following quote my impetus for writing this section:

"There is this such amazin guy out there right now tht i rlli like nd injoy spendin time with. Nd its amazin how much we can have so much in common. He just makes me laugh & have such a great time when im with him. When he smiles i smile bck. I can be myself around him. im not shy with him Theres just so much i can say nd feel with him.. I REALLY LIKE HIM! ♥"

And after I brought up my revulsion towards her written voice, she insisted that she didn't care. Needless to say, this boy broke her heart two weeks later.

Asides from all the meandering, my only suggestion, since humans are coded to strive in communication, is that if someone tries to initiate a conversation with you, be the better person and call them. Save your fingers some grief.

Your vs. You're

I've never, EVER, been a grammar snob. I don't really like scrabble, I'm terrible at crossword puzzles, and yes, even my fingers get a little lazy sumtimes, u kno? Cause im not going to spell everythin out wen i can jsut type like dis.

Not even after college, after suffering quietly for all those careless mistakes in essays. It's just carelessness, I suppose. But it's not difficult.

You can mistake there for their for all I care, but this "your" nonsense has to stop.

"Your" implies ownership of a trait or given object, such as "your terrible grammar offends me every time you use it"

And "You're" is a contraction for, "You are," such as in, "You're probably now dumber for having read this blog."

I'll end all of this with a poem I wrote a while ago called Kids:

My welcome

Is ten feet long

Purple and oblong

It weighs fifteen pounds

When filled with clowns

And runs on sugar water

My welcome

Will never be

Your welcome

Ugly Shoes and Dangerous Driving

First of all, not all English majors are good at Scrabble. I'm pretty terrible in fact, but I bet can still beat Chris Wallitsch at it, fairly consistently.

Speaking of Wallitsch, here's a prank we played on our town after being annoyed by the prolificacy of a "Lost Parrot" flyer.

The morning after affixing approximately 100 of these flyers underneath the originals, some mother on a mission took them all down. And I remember the person who actually posted the parrot flyers eventually contacted me and tried to make me feel bad about it all.

Secondly, Vibram's (which is pronounced Vee-Brahms for some Italian reason) FiveFingers KSO model is pretty kewl. $85...when you're rich like me, you can buy these shoes just to look at them, or microwave them, or bury them in the woods.

Today was the first day I used these mother-fuckers and I found that, during my three mile jog, I felt more comfortable running on the grass than on the cement. You can still feel the impact and the intricacies of each sidewalk, but I'm going to have to say I prefer my regular running sneakers for the asphalt.

My shins and ass definitely felt this run more than usual...so I know I'm a little closer to my work-out goal of crushing apples with my toes. I had no problem sprinting in these, and my feet felt very secure. These shoes are definitely for hiking. I also made sure to purchase the all-black versions of these shoes since I figured they would dry quickest in the sun after having splashed around a bit, but Vibram recommends you don't do that.

After the jog, I stretched on my front lawn, and a neighbor that always lets her dog shit all over the place made small talk with me and eventually asked "...but do you feel all the pebbles underneath when you run?" and I told her I did, if I were to scrutinize every step, and that our ancestors never used Nikes. And she understood, and her little mutt of a dog got a good whiff of my sweat-soaked shoes.

Thirdly, deliveries.

I made twenty-five deliveries yesterday, and around twenty on Saturday.

Breaking everything down: Sunday alone, I delivered $565 worth of food. I was tipped $147.

I delivered some food to a woman in the Hampton Inn's lobby and noticed a small tattoo on her shoulder of an om symbol, except it was torn at, ripped, burnt. There was actually a marble-sized blister disfiguring the sacred syllable of quite a few Indian religions.

Being nosy, I asked her what had happened, and she gave me an uneasy smile and told me it was a long story, and I believed her.

At some point in the incredible heat of the day, I stared straight ahead at the road while waiting for a light on Jericho to change and the road seemed to stretch itself out before me as if I were hallucinating--and then geese flying overhead sent down a breeze, changing the light green. Throughout the day, I learn that the marijuana habit is alive and well and very ubiquitous.

Back at the pizzeria, a snarky boy asked if we sold free ice cream and I couldn't help but laugh in his face and then laugh harder when my explanation failed to amuse him.

"You can't sell something that's free. Get it? Understand me?"

So I gave him a cup of ice water and told him to pour sugar on top.

"Right next to the coffee machine."

But what do I really want to inform those of you interested in a pizzeria career, or perhaps just those interested in the inner-workings of such an establishment? You should know that delivery boys, excluding those from major chains since they usually have multiple drivers, are usually very reckless when driving--especially when you're as terrible with directions as I am.

I must have blown fifty stop signs, and by blown I mean given joe-blobs to. At any given moment, I would be adjusting the 2 liter Pepsi in between my legs (which is where the cold drinks always go on hot days), juggling orders, deciphering scribbled addresses and belting Miike Snow songs.

I have an amazing falsetto, I've discovered.

Making deliveries provides the perfect stage for singing your favorite songs. Forget high school chorus and forget those college theater productions you never took part in--it's you and your voice under a sun-roof amidst people just as self-absorbed about the road and its ways as you are.

Dead Baby Jokes

Scientists recently found a bright light in the firmament that just so happens to be the heaviest star ever discovered.

No big deal.

This ball of gas, only 10,000,000 times brighter than our sun.

Meh. So what.

And its surface temperatures reaching 72,000 degrees Fahrenheit--that's one thousand times my favorite temperature.

I love this kind of shit because it's so beautifully confounding/daunting.

I frequent this website, and I think you should, too.

--

...While we're at it.

Found Dumb!

This is the first "Found Dumb!" entry--backwards for dumbfound, for these precious little moments throughout the week that have surprised me, and transformed me into a reveler of a revelation, entranced by a certain event that had transpired--and it can also quite plainly be found dumb, or monotonous, immature, what have you. I'm honestly not crazy about the title of the section but these things are about as official as the administration presently running this country.

Unfortunately for this week, everything that intrigued me was morbid--the last one is political, and more of a gripe than a declaration.

1. If you can remember...

Hollywood actor, Charlie Rocket, as seen in the picture above, not below

who played the obsessive fan in the fantastically underrated film (2.3/10 on IMDB):

as well as the villain in Dumb & Dumber (1994):

then you might have also known that he was found dead five years ago in a field near his Connecticut home.

The 56 year old had his throat cut open, with the state medical examiner ruling it as a suicide. And then those closest to him attempted to bring him closer to nature, ashes after they cremate you bastards, hope you been readin your psalms and chapters...

In short, he was cremated, but I went on a Jay-Z tangent...this is his best song, in my opinion.

Charles Rocket had an interesting and very ephemeral career on the SNL cast due to a faux pas, which for me, adds to the sadness of the story:

The February 21, 1981 episode hosted by Dallas star Charlene Tilton featured a parody of the famed Who Shot J.R.? episode of Dallas. In the episode, Rocket was shot in the chest by a sniper while doing a sketch about a sexy couple (with Gail Matthius as his partner) bathing a dog and spouting innuendo. At the end of the show, as cast members traditionally gathered around the host to say good night, Tilton asked Rocket how he felt about being shot. In character, a wheelchair-using Rocket improvised, "Oh, man, it’s the first time I've ever been shot in my life. I'd like to know who the fuck did it", followed by the cast and audience reacting with shock and laughter.

Due partially to the violation of broadcast standards, along with Saturday Night Live's low ratings, Doumanian and Rocket were soon fired (along with most of the writers and fellow cast members Gilbert Gottfried and Ann Risley).

I enjoy how wikipedia links the word "fuck", you know, just in case.

2.

An old couple was found dead in their home elevator in Georgia. Sherwood Wadsworth, 90, and his 88-year-old wife, Caroline, were found stuck in between the 2nd and 3rd floors. 911 was eventually contacted because of the accumulating stack of newspapers in front of their house.

There was no way to contact anyone while inside the elevator, which is the most fail-enabling elevator system I can envisage. Instead of feeling immediately upset from this story, all my mind could really do was conjure the image in Titanic of that old couple seen cry-spooning as the proletarian bulkheads fill. This image came to mind after reading how the couple was found "lying beside each other in the fetal position".

And then after all that, I couldn't help but think about the finality of such a thing. Being stuck, panicking, feeling helpless, angry, denial, depression, and perhaps finally acceptance.

Imagine if they got it on, just one last time?

This story reminds me of this video I had seen--a surreal time-lapse of one man's ordeal, being trapped in a McGraw Hill elevator in Manhattan for 41 hours.

3.

Nicholas Hughes, whose mother was Sylvia Plath, famed poet and novelist, hanged himself last year in March. He was living in Alaska at the time and had taken a break from teaching marine biology at the University of Fairbanks, a really long break.

Ted Hughes, Sylvia's husband, cheated on her and left her for another poet's wife, Assia Wevill, who also eventually committed suicide by gassing herself and their daughter, Shura, who sure isn't coming back from the dead anytime soon.

Side-note: I believe that if I can find a way to sneak in terrible jokes in between these sad histories, it might somehow legitimize these findings.

In case you were mistaking Sylvia Plath's suicide with any others, like Virginia Woolf's for an absurd example, allow me to clarify: Sylvia was the first to stick her head in an oven, Woolf weighed herself down with rocks so she could familiarize herself with the riverbed near her home, and Wevill, as mentioned above, supposedly copied Sylvia--some brash statement, I suppose.

A film named "Sylvia" was made in 2003 starring Gwyneth Paltrow and I really fucking loved it, not only because I thought Paltrow did a fantastic job, but also because of how well the movie adhered to fact. I must've seen this trailer 25 times.

Supposedly Sylvia Plath's daughter and literary executor, Frieda Hughes, not only refused to cooperate with the producers or allow them access to her mother's poetry, but also publicly denounced the project in a published poem of her own.

I found the poem:

Sylvia Plath My Mother

They are killing her again,
She said she did it
One Year in every ten,
But they do it annually, or weekly,
Some do it daily,
Carrying her death around in their heads,
And practising it. She saves them
The trouble of their own;
They can die through her
Without ever making
The decision. My buried mother
Is dug up for repeat performances

Now they want to make a film
For anyone lacking the ability
To imagine the body, head in oven,
Orphaning children. Then
It can be rewound
So they can watch her die
Right from the beginning again.

The peanut eaters, entertained
At my mother's death, will go home,
Each carrying their memory of her,
Lifeless — a souvenir.
Maybe they'll buy the video
Watching someone on TV
Means all they have to do
Is press 'pause'
If they want to boil a kettle,
While my mother holds her breath on screen
To finish dying after tea.

The filmmakers have collected
The body parts.
They want me to see.
But they require dressings to cover the joins
And disguise the prosthetics
In their remake of my mother.
They want to use her poetry
As stitching and sutures
To give it credibility.
They think i should love it-
Having her back again, they think
I should give them my mother’s words
to fill the mouth of their monster,
Their Sylvia Suicide Doll.
Who will walk and talk
And die at will,
And die, and die
And forever be dying.

If I were her, I'd hog those film rights until I was dead myself instead of denouncing the finished product and sounding like a real wind-bag.

4.

And the last topic, as promised, does not involve suicide or death, but actually gay marriage, or "civil union," according to my coworker who insists on these phrases remaining entirely distinct. I don't wish to delineate the conservative viewpoint because it's all antiquated and lacking progressive logic in my mind. My major gripe with this argument is how every time I find myself regrettably taking part in this conversational rubicon, the person against the idea of legalizing gay marriage brings up the fact that they have numerous gay friends.

"...Oh, and they're so great with their children, and everyone in the town loves them, and we just had dinner recently and they were just such great company..."

And it's all very futile and sad in a strangely oblique way, because it's a cheap exercise in evasion-- a truly ignorant affectation that leaves me utterly dumbfounded.

I will extol every step of progress against such thinly-veiled prejudice...Consider me a radical in this instance.

Favorite Drinks

In order of refreshing(ness):

1. Water

2. Milk

3. Arizona Iced Tea

Deliveries for the Liveries and General Contempt for Pedophiliacs

My readers should understand that this blog was started because before I began working at a pizzeria, I literally googled "Pizzeria Experiences" because I'm a wuss and I wanted to know what I was getting myself into. It seems like a generic-enough job, but what about the intricacies of each day? The idiosyncratic annoyances each customer poses?

I delve into this for you, and for my sanity, otherwise it would all go unnoticed and I would be suffering and laughing and sweating alone and as Mephistophilis gracefully put it: Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris--misery loves company.

For the past two days, I worked the counter and I made deliveries. Working the counter means: tending the register, spinning pies, wiping down the counter, arranging the slices behind the display case, actual congenial for the customers and occasionally microwaving rice-balls.

Nothing special with counter-work, but the deliveries, oh the deliveries.

The deluge on Saturday flooded Old Country Road and stranded everyone, but more importantly, me and my deliveries. And when I got to one of the houses, I was greeted by an amiable creature, a calm golden retriever. Out of the thirty or so houses with a dog inside, this was the only one that didn't bark like an idiot when I arrived. The owners let me pet the dog, with very little reserve. They introduced me.

"This is Max."

And I fell in love.

I remember there was some other dog, some mutt somewhere that whined quite a bit, really anxiously, ahh yes, I remember now. The mutt belonged to a family packing for a surprise disney trip--what happy little children they would soon have--the delivery boy, being made aware of such things, such privilege.

At another house, a man answers his door buck-naked, barely shielding his johnson with a towel when I show my disgusted surprise.

"Woah! You alright over there?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm sorry about this, just got out of the shower."

"Alright, $22.50, sir"

I don't remember at what point he says it, but he says "...still hot out there, ain't it?" and it was...And when he gets back, he's still cupping his crotch with the goddamned towel, and I can't believe his audacity, leaving me feeling anxious/harassed, but he tips me well, the hairy bastard.

An old lady living on some obscure cul de sac made me very aware of her fragility, just watching her live for our little shared moment, the quick and ungainly pitter-patter of geriatric feet.

There was a delivery to the Hampton Inn's front desk, a 10-15 minute pain-in-the-ass drive from the pizzeria, and when I tell the manager the price, he looks at me and tells me, very calmly, as if he's practiced this very monologue, "Full-price, huh? I can't believe you would disrespect us in such a way, such a slap in the face to my employees. "

Instinctively, I want to laugh, because he used the phrase, "...a slap in the face," but I try to understand before jumping on the defensive--bringing up how we normally do give discounts to our partners and how whoever handled the order just didn't realize at the time the egregious error they had made in forgetting to deduce three or so dollars from our standard price.

I tell him a simple phone call could rectify the situation, but he outright refuses to negotiate; the price, in his mind, is finalized. It has become personal.

"After all the business we've given you, after every reference we've given our customers. You can tell your boss we're no longer interested in doing business with you." And he hands me the little stack of menus from behind the desk, and I open up his pizza box and throw this dog poop I keep in my pocket for emergencies right in the middle of it--the steam from the pizza liquifying the whole mess surprisingly fast.

The poop part isn't real, but the manager leaves and I ask his quiet minion, who was standing next to the manager the entire charade, "Am I crazy?" And he tells me something obsequious to the effect of "Whatever the boss says..."

And you know, fuck it.

Later, I deliver a pie to someone's backyard, where there's a pool with three children jumping in and out of it, screaming ebullience, and three adults, lounging along the perimeter with mixed drinks, a happy calm between them all, and now exuding outwardly: "...Want to jump in?"

And short story short, I do, and it's more amazing than I imagined and the kids jump in right after me, screaming, "I can't believe it! I can't believe he jumped in! Yay! YAY!"

It was basically like this, but in a pool, and I got paid for it. And when I reluctantly hoisted myself out of the pool, the two little girls pushed me back in, proving that happiness can love company as well.

My car's thermometer, while sitting in the sun for a few hours reached 136 today, I remember it reached 148 at Bonnaroo.

...Sitting in the traffic between these destinations, these strange people, often wonderful, and entirely intriguing...

Ugly looking thing

traffic at a dead halt

beneath a bright beacon of green

trying so hard to signal the opposite

And no refreshing air to be had

just the muggy throwback

swimming in an ocean you could sweat in

--

That was an impromptu poem. Redundant? Maybe.

And as to the pedophiles mentioned in the title of this post, I just had to ask Bobby, that old veteran who comes in just to watch the phone girls work, what he was looking at today, since he was very obviously scrutinizing the movements of one of my co-workers. And he told me some bullshit about trying to "figure out [the girl's] dowry because women are the most expensive beings to maintain," or something, and then I had to make sure he was talking about "...women, right, Bobby? Not girls, women."

And even though he defended my freedom at one point or another, I still hate the bastard, and I wrote so on my drinking cup today, to distinguish mine from the rest.

"I HATE BOBBY"

The weekend fades to darkness and I drive home, my car still emitting the pungent scent of seafood fra diavolo. I arrive at the intersection of Glen Cove Road and Westbury and the light is yellow and I know I can make it. I drive through it and before I reach the beginning of the next street, I'm cut off by another driver making a quick turn in front of me, and I notice a flash of light behind me. A ticket. A $50 traffic violation as automatic as my ensuing anger. I scream one obscenity, bang the wheel of my car once, and allow the give-and-take of life to settle in like smoke.